


Starlight

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: The Last Remnant
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Guardian was the first constellation Rush had shown her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Wordfic challenge. Cleflink asked for "Irina - starlight."

The Guardian. That was the first constellation Rush had shown her, pointing up at the sky as they lay back in the grass behind their little house in Eulam, crickets chirping all around and the ground still warm from the summer sun. She learned that the Guardian circled the Anchor Star, visible all year, but it was the warmth she remembered most, lying with her head on her brother's arm and following the line of his finger as he mapped out the heavens.

She'd never really thought about it before, but most of the constellations were sovani. Torgal called the Guardian Erdri, had told them the whole legend one night around the campfire in the formal cadence of a storyteller, pointing out the Hydra she was striking at, the Tower at her back and the Kit at her feet. Pagus had sighed in genuine delight at the end of it, and they'd all applauded, much to Torgal's embarrassment, but even if that name had come first, Irina just couldn't bring herself to think of that cluster of stars as Erdri. It was always the Guardian to her, the first thing she looked for in the sky at night.

It was lonely, though, looking up at those stars from Eulam's shore with no one at her side. Her parents came out with her some evenings, home for good now that the Remnants were gone, but it just wasn't the same. Not much was except the sound of the waves, the cool salt breeze drifting in off the ocean, the faithful Guardian circling high overhead.

***

On her fifteenth birthday, she got a visistone all the way from Athlum. Well, she got other things also--Emmy specially ordered a dozen Blessed Buns from Elysion, claiming Rush had meant to get her some that last time they were there, and Blocter sent her a bracelet, Torgal a knife--but it was the visistone from Lord David that kept her up late into the night, watching it over and over. It had only been three months, but he already looked a little older, a little more tired than she remembered. It couldn't be easy, being a ruler without a Remnant, but unlike some lords, he'd never governed through intimidation, and he'd come out of the war with his people firmly behind him.

It was hard to tell where he was with only the transparent image of him as reference; he had a way of standing at parade rest even in the middle of a barren plain, when there was no one around worth impressing for miles. She thought he had to be somewhere private, though, his own quarters or the garden, because she couldn't imagine he would have said any of what he did if there'd been a single soul to hear him. Or maybe he would; Rush had thought David was pretty amazing, and Rush was rarely wrong when it came to people.

_"Miss Irina,"_ David began, and she noticed immediately that he had the trick of speaking so that even his image seemed to be looking directly into her eyes, not over her head or off to the side. _"Allow me to wish you many happy returns of the day. I confess I didn't realize your birthday was so soon until Emmy asked what I was sending, and then I'm afraid I panicked a little. You're a hard person to shop for, and I fear my last gift didn't turn out to be so lucky."_

She almost snapped the visistone shut then and there, her throat closing as she remembered how much her brother had loved that stupid jacket. He'd worn it even in town, when he wasn't likely to be fighting off anything but Nora's crazy sisters. It was David's sad little smile that stopped her, and she figured she owed it to him to listen all the way through at least once, because he understood. He missed Rush too.

_"In the end, I suppose this will be more to my benefit than yours. You certainly don't need to hear from me how much your brother loved you. But I thought you might like to know...in his own words, he called you the most important thing in his life. When you insisted on fighting, even though he was worried for you, he was proud of you, too. The entire time you were missing, he talked of nothing but finding you. In fact, I almost felt that I knew you before we even met."_

She knew that wry smile--a little rueful, laughing mostly at himself--but she'd gathered from a few things let slip that few others could say the same before Rush came along. _"Lord Qubine calls him 'grave,'"_ Emmy had said, not like she didn't agree, but as if the description had been an accurate one... _once._

Was that smile of his a little more faded than it had been? It might have been the recording. And then he was speaking again, and she was left hanging on his every word as he told her about meeting her brother for the first time, which wasn't at all the way she'd heard it from Rush, and how hard David had had to work to set aside a lifetime of suspicion in the face of Rush's incurable straightforwardness. How the gift of Rush's trust had made him want to earn it. What it had felt like to hear Rush promise to fight for him, for Athlum. How much he'd come to rely on Rush's solid presence at his side. He spoke until she gave up on trying to calculate what such a recording must cost; it was already priceless as far as she was concerned.

"You loved him," she said in the quiet of her room, sitting on her bed with her knees tucked to her chest, her sleeves as damp as her face. "You really loved him." She didn't even know herself which one she meant: her brother, David. Both, probably.

_"Well,"_ he said at last, dry-eyed to the end, though his face was terribly still behind his smile. _"I suppose you've listened to me ramble long enough. I only wanted you to know...he_ is _missed, and he was valued by a great many people. You are not alone in your loss, or in your memories. And should you ever doubt, then please. Come to Athlum, and we will be more than happy to prove it. Again,"_ he said with a slight incline of his head, _"a very happy birthday to you, and remember that you will always find a welcome here, and friends."_

Her parents found her like that the next morning, still watching the same endless loop, and though she didn't feel right about keeping it to herself, she was still a little afraid of what they would say. Her mother cried, which was about what she'd expected, but her dad only said, "He's a good boy," his own eyes red and a little lost. It was almost funny to think that her parents wouldn't have blinked at having a marquis for a son-in-law, but the fact that it was already too late made it not funny at all.

***

She got letters after that, sometimes a quick visistone or two from Emmy or Blocter, but never another one from David. That the Marquis of Athlum would write to her at all surprised her every time, and even though his letters tended to be short, she never felt like an afterthought or an obligation. It'd been hard to read them at first, because the too-careful, glaring _absence_ of any mention of Rush had stood out like a sore thumb until he just gave in. Then his letters came peppered with things like _"the place where we tried that awful local dish,"_ and _"that minister Rush nearly gave a heart attack,"_ and _"what on earth did your brother say about me to Caedmon? I had half the Silver Falcons on my doorstep before we even knew the Jhana were moving, and the man seemed positively insulted when I tried to offer him a reward."_

 _"You should come visit,"_ Emmy wrote, more than once. _"Or at least get off that island. You'll be getting soft with no one to spar with, I expect...and didn't you say you wanted to see the world without anyone chasing you?"_

She did, actually. She really did.

For her sixteenth birthday, she got her wish.

***

Docking at Celapaleis' port was nothing like flying over it in the arms of a Remnant. She'd been terrified at the time, frightened stiff at seeing the ground blur past so far below, though if she'd known then what she knew now, she would have realized she had nothing to worry about. She'd been stronger than Jager, could have taken the Lob Omen from him at any time.

Now she was glad she hadn't, wondered if the man missed his partner, if the Lob Omen, wherever it was, missed Jager back. She liked to think so, because she liked to think that her brother, wherever he was, missed her too.

It was strange to walk the streets of Celapaleis without anyone at her side, but she'd planned her trip out carefully with Emmy's enthusiastic help, and her parents trusted her not to do anything foolish. And besides, thanks to Rush, it was impossible to go anywhere in the world and be truly alone.

"Is that--it _is_ Irina! Kate, look!" cried a familiar voice, and before she knew it, she had long brown arms wrapped around her, lifting her right off her feet as Rhagoh laughed delightedly for all the world to hear. "Irina!"

"Yes, she heard you," Rhagoh's sister drawled, then ruined her aloof act with a welcoming hug of her own. "What are you doing here in Celapaleis, kiddo? You here with your family?"

"Out on my own," she replied, a note of pride creeping into her voice. "I'm taking the grand tour, from Celapaleis to Undelwalt, and all points in between."

"All by yourself?" Rhagoh asked, dark eyes wide and worried. "Are you sure you don't want company?"

"Some people _like_ being alone," Kate pointed out dryly, and Irina laughed at Rhagoh's agonized look, overdone for both their benefits. At least he wasn't worried because he didn't think she could take care of herself. But maybe Kate was a different story.

Or maybe not.

"You watch yourself, okay?" the other girl said as they parted later that evening, the sights seen and a very good meal devoured over better conversation. "And don't stay sad forever. Big or little," she added with a fond, sidelong glance, "brothers are always a pain."

"I'm so unloved," Rhagoh mourned, making sad eyes at his sister until she ruffled his hair into an impossible mess.

Even without the Umbermarici lighting up the sky, it was hard to see the stars from the middle of the city with twice as many lamps burning to make up for their missing Remnant. Though the first day of her trip had gone far better than she'd expected, she went to bed dissatisfied, missing those friendly lights.

"Better luck tomorrow," she murmured to herself, blowing out the candle left burning by the hotel staff.

The bed was soft, the walls thick enough to block out nearly every sound, but all the same, it was a long time before she managed to drop off, her sleep restless and broken by the nagging sense of something left undone.

***

By all rights Athlum should have been her next stop, but she'd decided to end her trip there rather than begin it, and she took the coach past David's city with only a few regretful glances back. It would have been nice to see everyone, true; she was just afraid that she'd find excuses to stay, to spend all the time she'd allotted for traveling without venturing further than the city gates.

The coach she'd hired traveled with a quartet of guards, serious men who could cast spells further away than she could even _see,_ clearing the road of monsters before the monsters could even get close enough to attack. They also had a shaman with them, an Athlumian mercenary who'd worked with her brother from time to time.

"'Morning, Miss Irina," McGrady had greeted her that first day, handing her into the coach like a grand lady, and after that she hadn't worried at all. There was nothing McGrady couldn't heal, even death, so long as he still had a body and a soul to work with.

She tried not to think about that too hard, taking Kate's advice to heart, but she wasn't much for lost causes. She settled for getting a good night's sleep, the curtains in her hotel room pulled back so she could look up from her pillow and see the stars, the four bright points of the Guardian's hands shining fierce and white above her.

***

She had no idea how the Duke of Ghor even knew who she was, much less that she was traveling through his lands, but she made a mental note to ask hard questions of both David _and_ Emmy once she reached Athlum. All right, so Ghor's streets were a maze, and even the nicest hotels looked like they might topple over from the outside, and maybe the mercenaries _did_ outnumber the citizens two to one. That was only because half the citizens were mercenaries themselves, and she was on first-name basis with most of them.

Though they'd never really talked, the Duke was as gruff and blunt as she remembered, and if he looked a little more grizzled than before, you couldn't tell he'd ever been wounded by the powerful way he moved, as confident and energetic as a man half his age.

"You're heading to Elysion from here?" he asked as they walked, slowing his long strides for her, though she still took two steps for every one of his. "If you need additional guards...."

"No," she said with a smile, hearing sincerity in his gravelly voice. "I'll be fine. My brother left friends wherever he went," she added, meaning only that she wasn't alone, would always have a safe place to stay if she needed one.

The Duke nodded gravely, as if she'd said something wise. "Yes, indeed. He had a rare talent, that one. You must give him my regards when next you meet."

For a moment she didn't know what to say. Had no one told him Rush was...? But no--she remembered then what the yamas of Ghor were like. Disappeared was one thing, but dead required a body. Until then, it was cowardly to give up hope.

"Yes," she said, deciding then and there that she liked this fierce old man, and that she wasn't going to let anyone get away with badmouthing Ghor in her presence ever again. "Of course I will."

"Hn," he rumbled, smiling down at her with a touch of avuncular fondness. "Good."

***

The sky over Elysion looked too empty without the Sacred Lands splitting the clouds, and even the smell of baking pastry made her want to cry, so she didn't stay long. Long enough to talk to the skeleton crew still manning the Academy, which had mostly become a library now. Haruko had returned, full of stories about her travels and regrets for the mysteries they'd never solve, but already Irina was feeling restless, wanting to push on to the next stop and the next. The more she traveled, the more strongly she realized she only wanted to go home, and that home wasn't Eulam Island anymore. It wasn't even her parents, though she felt like she'd spent most of her life missing them, like she might go right on missing them for the rest of it as well. Home was her friends, the town her brother had fallen in love with, because home was where Rush was, and Athlum was where he would have wanted to be.

She was nearly at the top of Mt. Vackel when she decided Undelwalt wasn't worth the trouble and leaned out the window to tell the driver to turn the coach around. The look he gave her was startled at first, but then he grinned, and in an accent that was pure Athlum, said, "Makes no difference to us, miss. We get paid the same either way."

So that was it. She was going home, and once she got there...she didn't know. But David was right and the old Duke had a point, and she wasn't going to forget or give up, because Rush wouldn't ever have given up on her. Gone didn't mean dead, and she wasn't a coward.

If there was a way to bring him back, she would find it.

***

Blocter nearly squished the stuffing out of her when she waltzed into the castle two weeks early, but she'd been braced for that. It was Emmy's fierce hug that left her with an inexplicable urge to stammer and blush that she resolved firmly to examine later, in the sanctity of her own room, when she could pull the covers over her head and be privately mortified at how idiotic she must have looked at the time. Torgal unbent enough to briefly touch her shoulder, and Pagus took one of her hands in both of his, saying, "Welcome back, Miss Irina. It's very good to see you again."

David looked just the way he had in the visistone, still a little drawn, like he'd been pushing himself too hard for too long on far too little sleep. But his smile was brighter than the one he'd given her then, even if it wasn't a patch on the one she remembered. "Welcome back," he echoed Pagus, and when he pulled her into a surprising hug, she realized two things almost simultaneously.

First, that the totally embarrassing crush she'd had on him a little over a year ago was completely gone. And second, he'd clearly learned how to hug from her brother, because they felt exactly the same.

It was Emmy who offered to show her to her room, just in case she'd forgotten where it was, Emmy added with a teasing smile, which could have been embarrassing-- _should_ have been embarrassing--and just...wasn't. They had plenty of things to talk about to distract her from wondering whether Emmy's eyes were really blue or grey or some wholly unlikely shade of silver, and from staring until she figured it out for herself.

"Lord David? He's well enough, I suppose. Busy," Emmy added ruefully, "as if you couldn't guess. He's been looking forward to your visit, though, and I for one am glad you've come early."

"Why's that?" she asked, her heart skipping stupidly in her chest, though she knew there had to be other reasons, something beneath the surface she probably wouldn't like at all.

"To see you, of course," Emmy startled her by saying, the woman's wry smile rueful and kind, and something else she wasn't quite ready to put a name to. "But also to get him out of those horrible council meetings."

"Meetings? Over what?" Not unrest in Athlum, surely, although...hadn't Rush told her about some run-in he'd had with an anti-Remnant league? Maybe now that they'd gotten their wish, they'd gotten more vocal. Or maybe--

"It had to happen sometime, I suppose...I mean, he is the marquis," Emmy grumbled, her mouth twisting unhappily. "But why they think they need to parade these girls past him like a horse being brought to stud--"

"P-parade?" Irina managed, and oh, those were mental images she did not need. But she knew what Emmy meant. "They're trying to get him to marry?"

"He would have had to anyway," Emmy said carefully, her footsteps slowing until they'd stopped halfway down some deserted hallway, turning to face each other in perfect solemnity. "Athlum needs an heir. But he would be...more careful in his choice if he knew it wasn't only his own happiness at stake."

It took a long moment to find her voice, nervousness drying her mouth and slicking the palms of her hands. "You...you think something can be done. That there's something _I_ can do."

"I don't know," Emmy said honestly, holding her eyes with an intensity she'd almost forgotten. It had to be bred into the Honeywell line, because she'd heard Emma had been exactly the same. "I hope there is. And I know if anyone can manage it, it's you. If there's anything you need, anything at all," she added seriously, "it's yours."

"I...I don't even know what to do," she admitted helplessly. Binding a Remnant was one thing, but did she even have any power left in her with nothing for it to work on?

"Just try," Emmy replied, resting a warm hand on her shoulder, callused and strong. "Even if you don't succeed, at least you'll have done your best."

Her room was the same one she'd borrowed before, and though she sat for a while curled up in the chair by the windows, she didn't stay put for long. She needed to think, and she needed air for that, the sky overhead and the breeze in her face. She still remembered the way to the gardens, and though she half expected to meet David there this time as well, she found the tiled walks empty, the place deserted.

It had already been late by the time she reached Athlum, later still before she signed off on the completed contract for her guards and transportation through the Guild, got escorted by the taciturn McGrady all the way to the castle. Now night was falling, the stars coming out one by one, the bright Anchor already shining strongly directly overhead. There were the Guardian's left hands, and there were the right, the three bluish stars of her sash and the boxy curl of the Kit at her feet.

"Rush," she said, watching the other constellations fade in one by one: the Tower, the Hydra, the Hierophant, the Scales. "I know you're out there, and I bet you can hear me. So what are you waiting for? An invitation?"

Well, maybe he was. Maybe that was it exactly.

Lifting her hands, she spread her fingers, palms out, angled thumbs and forefingers to touch. But when she reached for her gift for the first time in over a year, it was just like it had been that last time, the swirling matrix of her power refusing to solidify. Thinking of Rush--waiting, counting on her--helped, just like it had then, but what should have been a clean, crisp pattern was muddy, its edges blurred.

Heaving a gasped breath as she realized she hadn't been breathing at all, she nearly dropped her hands, her eyes hot with frustrated tears she refused to shed. It was the pair of hands that settled lightly, carefully to her shoulders that made her hesitate, the faint sigh at her back as David dropped his head to rest his brow against her hair. "Please," he murmured softly. "Again."

She tried again, and this time she added David's will and longing to her own, the Duke of Ghor's quiet certainty and Emmy's determination, McGrady's loyalty, Rhagoh's gratitude, all the people who knew him and missed him and wanted him back. Whatever was holding him couldn't stand against all of them. She wouldn't believe it. She _couldn't._

The light that lanced down out of the sky looked just like the Ark when it sent a passenger, David would tell her later, only green, the same unearthly color that came into her brother's eyes from time to time. Snapping shut her own, she winced away until the boiling column of light faded, but she didn't drop her hands or cease her calling until she blinked open her eyes and saw a familiar shape kneeling not even a stone's throw away, one hand braced on the ground and shaking his head as if to clear it.

"Rush," she heard David choke out, and then the hands holding her up were gone, the marquis going to her brother's side like Rush was the only thing left in the world at that moment.

"Dave," Rush said, so warmly she nearly blushed to hear it, looking up with a smile that spread achingly slow across his face. It was sort of amazing, the way they looked at each other, because how could she not have seen this at the time? How had _anyone_ missed this...or had they?

"Just kiss him already," she advised them both, and oh, she _was_ going to embarrass herself and cry all over them, but she really didn't care.

"Heh. I can do that later," Rush said, smile stretching into a grin as David helped him to his feet, then over to her. Then David was helping them both to the nearest bench, chuckling at the ridiculous picture they must have made, because neither of them were steady enough to hold the other up as Rush wrapped his arms around her tight, his hand settling warm and comforting and _real_ at the back of her head. "Wow, sis," he said into her hair, his laughter breathless, voice thick. "You've got a stubborn streak a mile wide, you know that?"

"Where do you think I got it?" she asked, hugging him back just as tightly, vowing never to let him go again. "I learned it from you."


End file.
